Fermata
by Kirei L
Summary: Nothing lasts forever, so let us prolong it while we're able.
1. Fermata

**fermata - _noun. a prolongation of a tone, chord, or rest beyond its indicated time value._**

What you're about to read are Kingdom Hearts **drabble entries** from a community I participate in on **LiveJournal**. With each chapter there will be a new drabble entry that is (unless otherwise specified) totally irrelevant and unrelated to the previous chapter/drabble.

Each new chapter/drabble will contain the original opening tags from my entry, in which you will be able to read the challenge the fic was based around, as well as the normal pre-fic tags: title, warnings, and author notes. It's important that you **always read the opening tags**, as sometimes one drabble might be a continuation to a previous piece, or related to another work of mine.

If you are interested in participating in the **drabble community** or reading entries from other writers, you can follow a **link within my profile**. Happy reading to all.


	2. Where the Heart Is

**title:** **_Where the Heart Is_**  
**series:** Kingdom Hearts  
**challenge / words:** paopu / 296  
**warnings:** boys love, Sora/Riku, AU, Mickey POV  
**notes:** This is a sidebar to The Gathering.

Somewhere between Heaven and Hell, there exists a place called Home. It's never quite as good as paradise, and it's never quite as painful as penance. It is different things to different people, and not at all to some.

Home is bittersweet and tattered silk. It is the medium between the extremities, teetering delicately upon a weathering precipice. It is never perfect, but an intricate beauty resides within its ugliness. Perhaps it is most beautiful in its disarray and ability to be mortally flawed. There is a certain symmetry in Home's inevitability to be asymmetrical- we come to depend on its undependable nature.

Everyone has a Home, regardless of what they preach. Whether it be of brick and mortar, or merely a secret place within your thoughts, Home forever remains a place you can return to in times of need or moments of want.

Home is-

"Mickey, you coming?"

Home, for Riku, exists within a place he can no longer reach. But I prefer to think he's merely taking an extended vacation.

"Yea, sure." I nod.

Someday Riku will find his Home again. No wooden porches and no cement foundations. There will be no warm fireplaces and no worn easy-chairs waiting for Riku in his home. Neither any salt breezes nor sandy shores.

There will be but an encompassing, never-ending love, taking perfect shape within a heart- a heart of a boy. And forever those two will remain, taking residence inside each other.

"Hey." He zips his cloak. "Did I ever tell you about the paopu fruit we have back home?"

"No," I say. It's what I've said for the past seven years.

"There's this legend that..."

Someday we'll find him again.

Home is where the heart is, and Riku left his in capable hands.


	3. Happily Ever After

**title:** **_Happily Ever After_**  
**series:** Kingdom Hearts  
**challenge / words:** blame / 367  
**warnings:** boys love, Sora/Riku, AU, Old!Riku  
**notes:** none

"It's your f-fault."

The sentence is squeezed brokenly from ruby lips. His words are staccato and thick like the blood that splutters through syllables, crimson accent marks within a dying language.

He isn't sure how things like this are supposed to end, but surely this isn't the proper resolution to a lifelong fairytale. No sweet kiss; no white knight; and although he can hear a distant pounding thrum within his ears, it's only his own fading heartbeat and not the resounding hoof beats of the fabled white steed.

Even after sixty-seven years, he is _still_ waiting for the climax.

"Everything... is your fault."

His story, a novel that should be full of unbelievable adventures and brandished conquests, feels like nothing but blank pages. Sheet after sheet of dirty white, the edges frayed and coarse from too much turning. As if the person reading had refused to believe that the book was bereft; that even after one thousand empty chapters he was expecting to finally find something scripted just beyond the next leaf.

But Riku had stopped writing his story on the day he asked himself, "What more?"

There is no more. There never will be again.

"You're... you're to blame."

Heroes aren't supposed to die alone; even villains never fade without the presence of the antagonist.

But Riku will.

Riku never met that special woman. Riku never settled down within the limits of white picket. Riku never had children, nor did he have the privilege of becoming a Grandfather. All things "normal" were always just beyond his reach.

Riku was too busy searching. He had spent his entire life looking, _hoping_, so that he could finally pick up where his story last left off- so he could finally begin writing again.

If mortal hands could finger through the early chapters of his life, they would find that the last page Riku had written contained only one word:

**Sora.**

It's Sora's fault that he had never stopped searching. It's Sora's fault that he never had a family. It's Sora's fault that he's dying alone and old.

It's Sora's fault that he's lying to himself.

"It's your fault... I fell in love."


	4. The New Publication

**title:** **_The New Publication_**  
**series:** Kingdom Hearts  
**challenge / words:** blame / 554  
**warnings:** boys love, Sora/Riku, AU, humor, incarnation  
**notes:** For DM. You must read **_Happily Ever After_** first to understand. 

The last page was blank.

It wasn't the fact that he liked to keep his books in perfect condition; and it wasn't so much that he had used the last of his paycheck to purchase the novel; and he could even live knowing he had waited in line for two hours just to snatch a copy.

No, all those things he could find the will-power to tolerate. It was the notion that he would never know the ending- _that's_ what made him the most angry.

Long-boned fingers slid into silver locks, pulling raggedly as he glared down his nose at the offending object. A part of him, the rational side, was whispering that no matter how long he blinked stupidly at the empty page it would always be blank. Another part, most likely the pissed off persona, told the other voice to promptly _shut the hell up_.

The waitress passed in a disturbance of cool air, and Riku found himself unable to focus on her soft words and faint clink of a coffee cup.

Because _damn it_, the last page was _blank_.

His livid swirl of thoughts began to drift, and he found himself wondering just how the last page had come about without content. It would be his luck, he decided, that even though the number of copies had been threatening to spill from the shelves, he would pick the faulty production.

The air around him shifted again, and Riku squeezed his eyes shut as someone slid onto the café stool beside him.

Sure, he could waste even more money to buy yet another copy, but it was the principle of the mat-

"Good book?"

Riku's head slid from between tense hands, his forehead hitting the counter hard enough to ignite sparks of light behind tight eyelids.

"I wouldn't know." He was in no mood for small talk. His disposition was steadily lurching into the angst-zone.

There was a jingle of jewelry and a rush of warm air as the stranger crowded his personal space _like how_. Tanned fingertips skimmed curiously over the blank page.

"But it looks like you've finished it. How could you not-"

"Because the last page is missing," Riku interrupted that particular line of thought. "You can't really finish a book if you don't know the entire ending." His voice was muffled as he spoke into the marble bar top. He imagined he sounded unsociable. He _hoped_ he sounded unsociable.

The waitress scurried by, the stranger beside him calling out his coffee order to her retreating backside. His unwanted bar-mate shuffled, and Riku's ears picked up another faint click.

This was not the click of a coffee cup.

Riku lifted his head slightly, watching as darkened fingers and a black pen scrawled along pristine white. Messily, a sentence took form over the blank page.

**And they all lived happily ever after.**

Riku's eyes darted to the stranger for the first time, drinking in the sight before him. He must have looked accusatory, because the teenager grinned sheepishly, excusing himself with a soft, "Sorry. My fault. I thought you-"

"What's your name?"

Azure eyes crinkled with a smile. "Sora." A silver necklace chimed as he extended his arm.

"Riku."

As he shook Sora's hand for the very first time, something inside Riku told him to forget about the book's resolution.

Climaxes suddenly seemed much more interesting.


	5. Last Smile

**title:** **_Last Smile_**  
**series:** Kingdom Hearts  
**challenge / words:** none / 245  
**warnings:** boys love, Sora/Riku, Ansem!Riku, dark  
**notes:** For DM. 

He only smiles in the darkness.

The fine line between habitual occurrence and disturbing trend is beginning to curl like melted plastic, and the excuses are becoming weak- less plausible. _It's private_ no longer seems to placate the second-guessings within, and _I'm crazy_ is starting to sound not-so-crazy.

The first times were all within the limits of innocence. He does, after all, have a reputation to upkeep. A soft smile hidden within the dim lighting of the Secret Place, a Cheshire grin stolen beneath the shade of the island bridge. Riku could never let them see because Riku must remain Riku, and all must remain right within their tiny scope.

So he smiled, only truly smiled, in the protection of dusky light and flickering shadows, hidden from prying eyes and the object of his amusement.

Amusement begot enamoring.

The smiles became more frequent and the required camouflage less available. Riku felt trapped, and there was an ever present squeezing within his chest that only seemed to alleviate in the dark- the one place he didn't have to mask his enamoring.

Enamoring begot obsession.

Riku is Riku no more, and their tiny scope has been shattered. He looks at the world through eyes that are another's, and a boy that used to smile in the light now will not smile upon Riku at all.

Riku knows his smiles are no longer in innocence, and Riku knows that nothing is innocent any more.

He only smiles in the darkness.

But it's always dark now.


End file.
